ptied it. The balloon swiftly rose, and the aneroid marked 2,500
feet. The villages seemed mere spots, the pattern of the carpet grew
blurred. Nothing was distinguishable--nor horse, nor sheep, nor any
living thing.

"Hurrah!" cried the captain, "we're off now."

Nearer and nearer came the belt of silver which seemed to girdle
continent and island. They were close to Dover, and could make out the
town. Josiah, knowing well the irregular plan on which the streets are
laid out, was struck by the manner in which, as looked down upon from
this height, they formed themselves into beautifully defined curves,
straight lines, and other highly respectable geometrical shapes. They
saw the castle and the pier with what seemed to be ants crawling on it.
A little patch of colour, that to Josiah looked like a ball of scarlet
worsted, was, the captain said, a sentry on duty.

"There's Shakespeare's Cliff," said the captain. "The Earl of Gloucester
should be with us now:--

How fearful
And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles; half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight."

"I'll look no more," said Josiah, who also knew his Shakespeare.

"Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong."

It was passing strange and at first dreadful, this intense silence and
this strangeness of the familiar earth. But after a while everything
like terror passed away from Josiah's mind. He began to feel the
fascination of the thing. His spirits rose as he breathed the delicious
air, and when the captain said, "We are over the water now," and Josiah
looking down discerned the sea gleaming below, he could have clapped his
hands for joy.

"This is splendid," said the captain. "We'll be across in half an hour.
We'll catch the train for Paris, and you shall dance at the Closerie
to-night."

Josiah didn't dance, and didn't know what the Closerie might be. But he
was not without susceptibility to the allurement of a quiet dinner in
Paris, and began to feel the exhilaration of having accomplished a
perilous feat, to which he would certainly drag in some reference in his
gre